Today, more Chinese own cars, thus competing for gasoline supplies, and Americans are paying around $3 a gallon for petrol.

Would you think more Americans would do like the majority of Chinese and ride bikes to work, to the supermarket, to the pharmacy?

Don Roberts of West Barnstable doesn't think so, and he's in a position to know. He has owned and operated The Bike Depot in Harwich for seven years and last November opened another outlet in the same building as the Old General Store at Routes 149 and 6A in West Barnstable -- the village's hub of activity.

He said recently maybe one or two customers have mentioned gasoline in the same sentence as buying a bicycle. The contemporary story of bicycles in America is one of recreation and exercise, not transportation, Roberts said.

A new business in West Barnstable is a rarity and what attracted Roberts to locate an extension of The Bike Depot there was a belief that the "biggest town on Cape Cod" was being underserved since two major bike shops in the area had folded over the last several years.

"I started thinking of a site in this area last summer and when this place became available, I took it," Roberts said. The store is open daily now that his snowbird help has returned.

"Business is good," Roberts said, although it's too early in the season to tell to what degree the new site will prosper since this is the first summer of operations there.

As he talked, he was busy repairing an expensive road bike fashioned of carbon fiber but doesn't expect the West Barnstable outlet to match the degree of business on Harwich's popular rail trail.

Roberts said there are about 1,000 versions of bicycles from various makers but becoming increasingly popular is the family-oriented "comfort bike" with aluminum frame, fat tires, easy twist gear shifting, front wheel and saddle suspension, "very, very good one-finger brakes" and comfortable riding position that minimizes wrist, back and neck aches.

"It's a family leisure bike," he says.

While his larger store in Harwich carries about 150 new bikes on the floor, the West Barnstable location has some 35 bikes to choose from, representing a good mix of the different types available, which start at $350 and can range up to $3,500 for the narrow-tire road bikes made of super lightweight carbon fiber.

"About 40,000 bikers a season pass by on the rail trail," Roberts said, "and most of them stop, if not to rest aching body parts or for a minor repair, then to enjoy ice cream or other treats."

A unique aspect of his Harwich operation is "serve yourself peanut butter and jelly sandwiches" for riders needing a jolt of energy. Consumers help themselves and the proceeds go to charitable causes.

"Sometimes visiting trail bikers want to know about riding on the roads and I tell them (tongue in cheek) there are three kinds of drivers on Cape Cod -- old, lost or drunk -- and none of them are going to see you."

The average recreational bike sells for about $350 to $450, Roberts said, and his being family shops, that is the range that sells most frequently.

A former chief financial officer, Roberts said he tired of the office grind and decided seven years ago to have a summer of fun doing something different. "I first thought of mini-golf," but the opportunity for the Harwich bicycle shop came along and he took it.

He's still having fun, he says, but "it is a business" and therefore not without its problems. "Just when I think I'm ready to question it, something good happens -- some intangible thing like a little girl's happy face" -- and he stays on.

Learn more about The Bike Depot and the Cape Cod Rail Trail at www.ccrailtrail.com.

here were more than 500 million bicycles in daily commuting use in China in 1987. At the same time, the U.S. gasoline pump price was 96 cents, according to the American Petroleum Institute, (or $1.52 adjusted for inflation.)